Joe Reitz enjoying 'unbelievable' ride with Ravens

Former Broncos basketball star will be on sideline for AFC championship game

Joe Reitz

BALTIMORE -- His neck and face filled out, his thighs too massive for jeans that fit his waist, Joe Reitz has just about shaken the "basketball player" label around his new teammates.

Aside from a few free throws at the Baltimore Ravens practice facility, at 310 pounds, Reitz is all offensive tackle these days.

"Now I feel like I'm one of the guys," said the 6-foot-7 Reitz, who played his four years of college basketball at Western Michigan University at about 255 pounds. " ... I'm starting to look like it."

Reitz will be one of the 50 or so of "the guys" on the Ravens' sideline at today's AFC championship game in Pittsburgh (6:30 p.m., CBS).

He won't play a down, hasn't taken a snap all season and hasn't practiced since early October because of a shoulder injury -- somehow, though, he feels every bit a part of the Ravens' playoff run.

"It's been unbelievable," Reitz said. "They brought in Willie Anderson, a right tackle from Bengals. He'd been in one playoff game in his first 10 seasons and lost it. Talking to him, you realize how special it is your first year to be a part of this."

Reitz signed as a free agent with the Ravens shortly after the 2008 NFL draft and made the practice squad at the end of training camp. A few weeks into the season, though, he suffered a torn posterior labrum in his left shoulder while "blocking a 300 pound guy."

"I had my arm out and it got jerked back," said Reitz, who first injured the shoulder during training camp. "It tore it up pretty good."

For Reitz, who still has a few "Wow, I'm really doing this" moments, even the surgery with the famed Dr. James Andrews out of Birmingham, Ala., was an eye-opening experience.

"The had a special waiting room for professional athletes," said Reitz, who saw pitcher John Smoltz at Dr. Andrew's office while he was there. "I'm like, 'I'm just ordinary Joe. I'll be fine (in the other room).' (They said) 'Well, we put all the professional athletes in this special room, so people don't bother them.'"

Reitz said he should be healthy by the time offseason workouts begin in mid-March. Then begins the task of turning an interesting year into a career as a left tackle, something folks in the Ravens' front office have told him they still believe will happen.

"The Ravens have been true to their word with everything they've ever said to me," Reitz said. "They said they wanted to bring me in, develop me as an offensive tackle, put me on the practice squad for a year or two.

"For me as an individual, I'm focused on next year, trying to get as good as I can and make the actual team."

Doing so has allowed Reitz to walk among Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and the other Ravens stars this year.

"Every day I go in in the morning, do my lifting before team meetings," said Reitz, who said not all injured players attend. "I sit in and go to all the team meetings. I do everything I did before (the injury), but when they're practicing, I do my shoulder rehab.

"For me, I'm in the position of not even having played football before (since high school). I'm just trying to pick up as much as I can."

Like a Super Bowl ring, for example.

"I hope we go up (to Pittsburgh) and play well," Reitz said. " ... and I hope it's not too cold."